Witchlight Marion Zimmer Bradley

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can someone just forget their past?" she burst out helplessly.
"A lot of people would like to," Dr. Palmer said. "Maybe you're fortu-
nate.''
And maybe not. "I'm sure it will come back to me," Winter said, and
this time she made the cool dismissal in her words unmistakable.
Dr. Palmer took the hint. "Well, good luck then. And if there's any-
thing else you need, Winter, remember that you have friends here." He
stood, adding the Taverner to his stack of books.
"Thank you," Winter said formally. "You're very kind."
She watched as Dr. Palmer walked away, and for a vulnerable moment
she wished to summon him back. He had been kindness itself--maybe
he could help.
W1T CH LIGHT 59
No. She didn't need anyone's help. Whatever had to be done, she'd do
herself. Needing other people only got you hurt. She glanced at her watch.
It was time to go. Winter gathered her things together and stood up.
Professor Rhys's offices were in one of the older buildings on the campus,
though since nothing had gone up on the Taghkanic grounds since the
Second World War, none of the campus buildings could be called partic-
ularly new.
As she crossed the campus, Winter could almost imagine that it was
as familiar as it ought to be; that the past year was only a bad dream and
that there was some other reason that she'd come back to rhis place where
her younger self had known so much happiness.
But if that were to be reality, Winter was slowly coming to realize,
then more than the last year would have to vanish. During the past sev-
eral days, she'd sought in vain for traces of the woman she'd become in
the girl who'd written poetry and played madrigals, and could not imag-
ine that child turning into the woman she knew as Winter Musgrave.
But she did. She's you, Winter reminded herself. So what if you can't
imagine it--you've never been all that fanciful. Brusquely she forced away the
insolent reminder that the writing of poetry and plays requires a cer-
tain amount of imagination, and mounted the steps of the rambling
nineteenth-century building that was her goal.
Afternoon sunlight slanted whitely through the windows at the end of
the long hall, and the--familiar?--scents of dust, apples, and old varnish
tickled Winter's nose. She peered down the anonymous line of glass-
paneled doors, wondering which it was. Professor Rhys had given her a
room number, but there didn't seem to be any numbers on the doors.
"Welcome, my dear--welcome."
Winter, peering closer at the nearest door, and just realizing that there
actually were brass numbers on them--tarnished to black and indistin-
guishable from the varnished wood--jumped as she was hailed cheerily.
She looked up.
From the far end of the hall a man who looked more like a professor
than anyone had a right to leaned out his open doorway and waved.
"Professor Rhys?"
If he wondered, she had an excuse for asking--the glare made it diffi-
60 MARION Z I M M E R BRADLEY
cult to see, she could say. But the reality was, she could see him perfectly
well; it was her stubborn memory that refused to give up its horde, and
Winter was left feeling not as though she'd never known this place and
people, but rather as if she'd known them once, and forgotten.
"Yes, yes--" The voice was expansive and faintly English. "And you
must be little Winter; how delightful."
Hesitantly, Winter approached. Professor Rhys beamed--a ruddy-
faced, white-haired cherub of a man, he was only a few inches taller than
she was.
"What a pleasure it is to have the opportunity to visit with a former
student. Do come in, my dear, and tell me how you've been. Did you
make a go of the theatrical life, or did you decide to stay with painting
instead?"
"Neither one, actually." Swallowing dread, Winter forced her voice to
match his delight and cheerful tone. "And how have you been?"
She followed Professor Rhys into his office. A corner room, it had win-
dows on two sides, and a small fireplace on the wall it shared with the of-
fice next door.
Yes, that was right; the first-floor offices all had fireplaces; it was one
of the oddities of the building's construction.
Pleased to have reclaimed even so small a scrap of her past, Winter
smiled at Professor Rhys.
"How have I been? Oh, you know the academic life; moments of the
most lively terror interspersed with years of boredom. But come in, do,
sit down." He lifted a teetering pile of magazines and folders from the
end of the cracked leather couch and gestured for her to sit.
Winter seated herself in the freshly cleared space and looked around.
The office was almost a parody of what she'd expect an absentminded
professor's office to be like: The built-in bookshelves were stuffed with
books and papers and edged with memorabilia; the mantelpiece of the
small, green-tiled fireplace was filled to overflowing with books, framed
certificates, and peculiar objects less easy to identify. It was a homely
place, in the oldest sense of the word--a place where one could feel at
home.
"I do hope you're feeling better now," Professor Rhys went on, "al-
though I don't know why I'm talking about it as if it were yesterday--it
was fifteen years ago, wasn't it?"
W I T C H L I G H T 6i
"I left without graduating," Winter said, as if she were answering his
tacit question. Coming here had been a mistake, she realized. Professor
Rhys didn't know that she remembered neither him nor her college
years--how could she expect him to give her the answers she needed un-
less she could bear to tell him why?
"But of course your diploma was sent later," Professor Rhys said
firmly.
I wonder if it was. "Professor, I was wondering; could you tell me--"
"Ah, there you are, Johnnie!" The speaker did not bother to knock,
but came sailing in as if this were his office instead of John Auben Rhys's.
Lion Welland was in many ways the physical antithesis of Professor
Rhys. Tall and heron-gaunt--his blond hair worn in a flowing mane
reminiscent of an old-time impresario--time had given him the brow of
Shakespeare and sculpted the hairline into a dramatic widow's peak. He
wore an open-collared shirt with french cuffs and a silk scarf tied around
his throat ,~ la apache.
"Winter, you remember Lionel Welland--he's head of Drama now.
Lion, this is one of my former students, Winter Musgrave.'
"A pleasure," Lion said briefly, his attention elsewhere. "Johnnie, love,
you are not going to believe what those macho babus over in admin have
done this time--" He leaned over Professor Rhys, his hand on the profes-
sor's shoulder, and lowered his voice to a fierce murmur.
In short, Lion was a textbook-perfect picture of a theatrical "queen,"
and it was obvious from the intimate way he leaned over the other man
that he and Rhys were a couple.
There ought to be a place fiJr people like that, where decent people wouldn't be
exposed to them/The sudden flash of hatred was primal, irresistible--and
somehow alien, as if neither the thought nor the feeling were truly Win-
ter's. The emotion made her feel dirty, and as if she'd failed to live up to
her good opinion of herself.
Had the child she'd been thought and felt these things? Winter was
almost certain she had not. Confusion replaced disgust.
"It's a pleasure to meet you--again--Professor Welland," Winter said,
with such fierceness that Rhys chuckled.
"That will serve you out for your rudeness, Lion," he said.
Lion turned to Winter and advanced upon her, both hands extended.
"My dear lady--forgive my obliviousness. We of the theater tend to live
62 MARION Z IM M E R BRADLEY
in worlds of our own, you know--until someone makes it impossible for
us," he added darkly.
"The administration is saying that Lion ought to charge for the Shake-
speare festival, rather than ask for an increase in his budget," Professor
Rhys supplied. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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